contributed by Meg Priceei the experience
Social-emotional learning (SEL) by definition is the process of learning life skills, including how to deal with self, others and relationships and work effectively.
Although there are many great SEL programs, SEL can be incorporated into any lesson as a way of teaching students to understand how to act on the skills in different situations and form positive habits. All students start school with a certain level of social and emotional skills, and all will develop their social and emotional skills at different rates.
Both parents and teachers are responsible for teaching students life skills, and surely much of what they learn will be by observing our actions. The five strategies below will not only contribute to students’ social-emotional learning, but can also benefit teachers’ well-being.
See also The benefits of social-emotional learning
5 Strategies for Incorporating Social-Emotional Learning into Your Classroom
1. Through attention
Mindfulness is: paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment.
We are hearing more and more about the benefits of mindfulness for children. Increased attention leads to better academic performance and increased emotional and social intelligence. Children are better able to learn, to educate themselves and to be aware of their own emotional needs.
Mindfulness practices help students focus on their breath, body, thoughts, feelings, and the world around them. When they can monitor their thoughts and feelings, they have the freedom to choose how to speak and act – which can lead to a happier and more harmonious classroom.
There are many mindfulness activities available for free – for example on YouTube. In addition, there is attentiveness and meditation apps which can provide frameworks to start with. Why not start each lesson with a different mindfulness activity?
2. Make it clear that thoughts lead to feelings
Research shows that students who are more resilient are more successful academically. Resilient students recover faster, are mindful of their thinking, understand their beliefs and, importantly, can challenge their beliefs and thoughts to create more positive outcomes.
This is an important concept because we can’t always influence what happens to us, but we have a powerful influence on how we interpret what happens to us and how we deal with it. Many students don’t know that their thoughts play a big role in influencing how they feel.
No matter what happens to you, no one can take it away from you. This is an empowering lesson to teach when you hear a student express frustration, anger, and other negative emotions. As a teacher, you can help by listening to the emotion, then helping your student understand where that emotion is coming from and how to adjust their thinking in a way that contributes to their social-emotional well-being.
3. A model of perseverance and determination
A really important aspect of well-being and SEL is the ability to achieve things in life. Many students naturally strive to improve in some way, whether they want to master a skill, achieve a worthwhile goal, or win a competition.
Other students need some training in this area. Teaching students every single lesson that accomplishes something takes effort, patience and persistence are important. Praise for effort is critical in this area of SEL. Each student should be encouraged to set goals during lessons to feel a sense of accomplishment.
By being mindful and challenging negative thoughts, students can be encouraged to dig deep to find the determination to succeed.
4. Listen with empathy
In other words, listen to be surprised.
Part of SEL is understanding the importance of positive relationships. To have these relationships, we must have and teach empathy. Teachers have a wonderful ability to model empathy. Encourage students to listen to others, then ask them to listen to be surprised and understand how other students might be feeling. What opportunities do you have for each class to find ways for students to help each other and learn something new about other people’s ideas?
Use the opportunity in class to teach students to ask questions designed to encourage response rather than defensiveness. For example, when John says, “Sam, why don’t you just follow the instructions?” encourage John to rephrase his question to better understand what Sam is looking for “Sam, can we work together with these instructions to make sure they make sense?
5. Emphasize gratitude
Once again, research shows us that a really important aspect of well-being is gratitude. This research shows that those who regularly express gratitude have more energy and enthusiasm, less stress and better physical condition. There are some very simple ways to increase your experience and express gratitude; however, this may require training ourselves to think differently.
For students, this can be done by including some simple exercises in each lesson. At the end of each lesson, ask students to reflect on the class using these three questions:
– What aspects of this class did you enjoy today?
– Who did you enjoy working with today?
– What areas of this topic would you like to learn more about?
The most important thing is to have fun in every single class; learning should be fun and play is a really important part of social-emotional learning!
